Arenac Eastern looking to renew superintendent contract with SSC

6/21/13

TWINING — The Arenac Eastern school board is interested in renewing its current shared superintendent contract with Standish-Sterling for the upcoming school year, and the two boards will be meeting within the next couple weeks to discuss whether or not the contract should be tweaked.

AE and SSC Superintendent Darren Kroczaleski has been pulling double duty since January, when the districts’ boards voted to have him work at AE one day a week. In return, AE paid SSC $7,500.

The new proposed agreement would continue the same level of service to AE for the entire school year at $15,000, Kroczaleski said, adding that AE’s board has already approved the contract.

“The Arenac Eastern board has liked the arrangement, and would like to continue it,” Kroczaleski said. “I have some longer days, and I work on some weekends, but so far I’ve been keeping up with it.”

The SSC board tabled the contract approval at their June 10 meeting due to Trustee Ron Bartlett’s concerns about the amount of work for the superintendent versus the amount of money SSC would be getting for the agreement.

“We should sit down with their board and discuss it,” Bartlett said. “I think they’re taking advantage of us having Kroczaleski every week (for that much).”

“Our board is working for our district, and to be fair, I want to help them out,” he continued. “But we should be compensated more than we are.”

He suggested increasing the requested amount for the shared services agreement to 20 percent of the total superintendent cost. Kroczaleski’s contract with SSC is listed as him earning $111,025 a year, and Bartlett wanted to see AE pay $22,205 of that. Kroczaleski said he already was working roughly that equivalent amount or less with AE, depending on what is going on at the school.

Trustee Leonard LeClair suggested tabling it until the two boards could meet and discuss the contract’s final form, which Kroczaleski expects should happen either the last week of June or the first week of July.

Following the meeting, SSC’s board will vote on the new contract July 15, Kroczaleski said. If the contract changes from the initial proposal, then AE’s board will also need to vote on the new contract at its meeting the same day.

Kroczaleski took over superintendent duties at AE following the end of a contract with temporary Superintendent Brenda Wilson, who served from July 2012 until December. She in turn replaced Bill Grusecki, who left the position at Arenac Eastern in June 2012.